Book Commentary on “Financial Citizenship: Experts, Publics, and the Politics of Central Banking” by Anne-Lise Riles

Abstract

Financial Citizenship addresses the new era of central banking by focusing on the conflicts over central banking legitimacy in order to ultimately provide "a new theory and practice of legitimacy" for central bankers. In this article, I summarize first how Riles accounts for the "culture clash" between central bankers and the public, and how she aims to solve these tensions with the concept of financial citizenship. Second, I argue that the book has missed one of the main problematic dimension of contemporary central banking, which is the rise of private financial power. I also contend that the analysis of the "populist backlash" lacks empirical underpinning and that the concept of "financial citizenship" is unlikely to restore central banks' legitimacy.